


Let This Moment Be The First Chapter

by SuburbanSun



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hopeful Ending, Light Angst, New Year's Eve, New Year's Kiss, current canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-11 01:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5609113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuburbanSun/pseuds/SuburbanSun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the year they've had, neither Fitz nor Jemma are sure they have anything to celebrate on New Year's Eve. </p><p>(They find something to celebrate, anyway.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let This Moment Be The First Chapter

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adaughterofeve](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adaughterofeve/gifts).



> Written for adaughterofeve, who was one of the winners of my 500 Followers Fic Giveaway forever ago! She asked for an in-canon current timeline New Year's story. I hope you enjoy it!
> 
> Title from Hamilton, _obviously_.

The party had been a bit of an afterthought, really.

No one at the base had felt in the holiday spirit of late. Christmas had been marked by a simple dinner, not much more elaborate than any other day except that they all made an effort to eat in the same place at the same time. Fitz and Jemma had exchanged small gifts in her room after dinner, but other than that, the holiday had passed without much fanfare.

So when Daisy suggested a New Year’s Eve party, Fitz had been surprised.

“Don’t you at least want to celebrate this god-awful year _ending_?” she’d asked, and she hadn’t been wrong. So he’d helped her hang decorations in the living room, sent Hunter out for a last-minute liquor run, even rigged the DWARFs up along the ceiling to drop balloons from a suspended net at midnight.

He’d hoped a night of frivolity might ease the pain he still saw every time he looked into Jemma’s eyes (which was often, as neither seemed willing to let the other out of their sight for long these days). She’d smiled when she noticed the DWARFs, but hadn’t seemed very engaged in the festivities overall, and at 11:45, Fitz realized she’d disappeared from the party entirely.

He excused himself from his conversation with Hunter, grabbing two of the flutes of champagne that Coulson had set out on the countertop. He had three ideas of where she might be.

Fitz checked the lab first, just because it was the closest. The lights were dim and the space seemed eerily quiet. Not there, then.

He poked his head into her bedroom after rapping out a quick knock-- perhaps she’d gone to sleep early? But the room was dark, her bed still made.

That only left one option, and really, he should have known.

“Jemma,” he said gently, trying not to startle her where she stood at the window. She turned to look at him over her shoulder, smiling softly and tilting her head to beckon him closer.

“I was going to come back down before the countdown,” she said apologetically once he’d stepped beside her in front of the window. “I just needed a minute.”

Fitz set the pair of champagne flutes on the windowsill. “No, it’s fine.” They stood in silence, both looking out into the darkness, before his brow furrowed. “I can go back, if you wanted to be alone, or…” He made a vague gesture at the hallway behind them, but she just shook her head vehemently.

“No, please stay!” She tucked her hair behind one ear. “I’d like it if you stayed.”

“Then I’ll stay.”

They both went back to staring at the dark sky outside. The night was cloudy, dimming the glow from the moon. A long moment passed before either of them spoke again.

“It feels a bit anticlimactic, doesn’t it?” Jemma asked.

“What does?”

“New Year’s. I mean, it’s just the continual passing of time. The Earth completing one more rotation around the sun. Nothing _actually_ changes between 11:59 and 12:01.”

Fitz smirked a little, thinking of all the New Year’s Eves he’d spent beside Jemma. “That’s why you always said that New Year’s resolutions were loads of rubbish.”

“Well, they are,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “People should make necessary improvement goals year-round, not just at some arbitrary time because of tradition.”

He chuckled, remembering all the times she’d said something similar in the past, with a roll of her eyes or a smug expression.

“It’s just…” she continued, frowning. “Nothing’s going to be different when we wake up tomorrow.” She began clenching and unclenching her fists at her sides as if out of habit. “Everything that’s happened will still have happened.”

“Well, yeah.”

She let out a frustrated puff of air. “I’m just not sure what there is to celebrate about a new year, at this point.”

Fitz reached up a hand to rub at his jaw, eyeing her out of his peripheral vision as he considered how to respond. “Well. We’re alive. For one. And… okay, maybe that’s all there is to celebrate. But it’s something.”

Jemma ducked her head for a moment, then nodded. “We are alive,” she murmured, and he knew at once that she was thinking of all the people who no longer were. If he gave her enough time, she’d manage to blame herself for every death that had happened throughout the whole course of human history, so he didn’t give her any at all.

“Hey,” he said, raising a hand to settle on her shoulder, soft and steadying. “We’re _alive_. Could that be enough? For tonight?” He leaned forward to better see her face. She bit her lip, and though he could still see the pain and hurt and guilt in her eyes, there was also fondness in her gaze. The corners of her lips quirked up, just a bit.

“Okay. For tonight.”

She turned her attention back to the window, and instead of letting his hand drop away from her shoulder, Fitz took a quiet breath and slid it across her back, over her shoulder blades, until his arm was wrapped around her. Jemma leaned into his body almost immediately, and he let his eyes slip shut, relishing in the feeling of her, warm and safe and real, by his side.

“Do you remember our last New Year’s Eve in our apartment?”

Fitz smiled. “How could I forget? I almost set fire to the kitchen--”

“--nobody _asked_ you to make those modifications to the oven--”

“--and then you woke me up when I fell asleep on the couch and dragged me up onto the roof to see the fireworks.”

“You love fireworks.”

“I love sleep, too.”

Jemma let out the barest breath of a laugh, and Fitz began to rub his thumb slowly back and forth across the curve of her shoulder.

“What’s got you thinking about that night?” he asked, and she shrugged a little under his arm.

“I think maybe that was the last year that things were easy.”

“Maybe,” he mused. Privately, he thought she was probably right, that things had only become more and more complicated and fraught in their lives since they’d left SciOps to join Coulson’s team. And he wasn’t sure that things would or could ever get any better, cursed as they seemed to be. But he needed Jemma to have hope, a visceral need that felt more selfish than he had any right to be. He couldn’t stand to see her despairing. “I think maybe things will get easier, though. And easier, and easier, with time. Who knows, maybe one New Year’s Eve in a couple of years, we’ll be watching fireworks from a rooftop in Boston again. Or in Timbuktu, if that’s what you want.”

“Or in Scotland,” she said softly, and he felt warmth bloom in his chest.

“Or in Scotland,” he affirmed.

Another long, comfortable silence passed as they stood pressed up against each other, before the faint sound of the rest of the team chanting the countdown to midnight broke through the quiet. _10, 9, 8…_

Jemma stepped forward, away from Fitz’s hold, and he let his arm fall to his side as a quizzical look graced his face. She pivoted in place so she was facing him fully, her back to the darkened window. _...7, 6, 5…_

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it as her hand drifted up to just barely graze his jawline. _...4, 3, 2…_

She took a breath, licked her lips, and leaned in.

_...1…_

The kiss was soft, and slow. Fitz’s hands flew to her waist, and she brought her other hand up to rest against his chest, her palm warm and solid against the beat of his heart. Only a few seconds passed before she pulled away, and Fitz was slow to open his eyes. When he did, he thought that the pain he could see in hers had lessened, just a fraction.

“Happy New Year, Fitz,” she whispered, one hand still resting over his heart. He reached up and placed his hand over hers, and allowed himself to smile at her.

“Happy New Year, Jemma.”

She returned his smile with a small one of her own, then slipped her hand out from under his, stepping back into place beside him. As they gazed out the window into the darkness, Fitz knew that nothing had actually changed when the clock struck midnight.

Even so, it felt like a new year.

**Author's Note:**

> Want to hang out on Tumblr? I'm unbreakablejemmasimmons over there!


End file.
